The Ungappable Bridge: Numbers as Guides to Object Relations and to Cultural Development

A glance at the index of the Collected works show that Jung referred frequently and in various ways to numbers. He did so in many places but chiefly in Psychology and alchemy, The psychology of transference, A psychological approach to the dogma of the Trinity,¹ Transformation symbolism in the Mass,² Synchronicity—an acausal connecting principle³ and finally in Mysterium coniunctionis. The importance of numbers as structures and explanatory principles of differences in personality relationship problems is already apparent in Psychological types. If anything, Jung's interest in numbers seems to have grown since his early paper ‘On the significance of number dreams’⁴ in 1910 but it also underwent a change. What use do we make nowadays of numbers in our analytical work? This question is not one which can be easily answered.

Before attempting to give an outline I must explain the title of this paper. It happened to me as a spoonerism, but noticing that it contained a paradox, I thought it would illustrate my thesis. Another association was Winnicott's paradoxical but telling phrase, ‘the child being alone with his mother’. The specific type of relationship to which he alludes in ‘The capacity to be alone’⁵ was also covered by my spoonerism: there would be no need for a bridge if there were no gap. On the other hand, when I considered myself in relation to some persons, I feel that we are polar opposites and as such, irreconcilable. Yet, the moment I conceive of differences in these terms, I have virtually bridged a gap which nevertheless continues to exist. By allotting an image-arousing name to a situation, the span of my awareness has widened, the imageless gap is now conceivable. The remaining problem is to avoid hasty and facile conciliations and really permit the paradox, with all its affective consequences, to continue. I therefore left the spoonerism in.

I further wish to recall that at the end of a paper entitled ‘What do we actually do?’⁶ I mentioned the desirabi